How did Man City and Chelsea fare in previous meetings?

Manchester City and Chelsea have drawn once in their last 19 meetings – surely the upcoming fixture at the Etihad has a result written all over it?

At 5/6, City are clear favourites to get a win, no doubt down to their incredible home form this season, with 11 out of 11 victories in the league. Chelsea are down at 10/3 to pull off an unlikely result, but the 5/2 odds for a draw looks the best bet.

Out of the last 10 games in all competitions against the London side, City have managed to win an impressive six times – drawing once – including victories in four of the last six. A few of these games were with an inferior team too.

Their most recent encounter, however, went Chelsea’s way with a 2-1 victory at Stamford Bridge in October. This was a match memorable for the mix-up between Matija Nastasic and Joe Hart that allowed Fernando Torres to slot home a last-minute winner.

Chelsea got off to a great start thanks to Torres’ run down the right wing to set up an easy tap-in for Andre Schurrle. Sergio Aguero’s wonderful left-footed smash past Petr Cech at the near post brought the scores level, but this was a typical match between two teams determined for victory.

Last season, the two clubs must have been sick of sight of each other, after battling it out four times across three competitions. City, however, convincingly came out on top, winning three out of four, including a 2-1 FA Cup semi-final win and a 2-0 home league victory.

The pick of the bunch was the season-opening Community Shield match, where City came out on top in a five-goal thriller, in part due to Branislav Ivanovic’s sending-off before half time and just two minutes after Torres opened the scoring.

Goals from Yaya Toure, Carlos Tevez and Samir Nasri within 20 minutes after the break effectively won the game for City, with a 79th-minute goal from Ryan Bertrand setting up a 3-2 tense finish.

City took four points off Chelsea in last season’s two Premier League fixtures last season, starting with a goalless draw at Stamford Bridge before a 2-0 victory at home in February.

One very interesting fact about tonight’s game is that the home side between these two clubs have scored exactly twice in eight out of their last 11 head-to-heads, giving a suggestion that a 2-0 repeat of last season’s meeting is a good bet to have at 9/1.